I did this in 4 tries back when it had no subdungeon - thats how I noticed it has no subdungeon. I used Thralls as blood cows - drain them, explore to regenerate them, and was carefull about killing them. Didn't get too many badges, but:

Don't waste time on resists before you kill the shade - you won't get far. HALMEH and GETINDARE are big on a VAMP, bigger then fireball. You need lvl5 thralls or Dragonkin. You don't want shades blinking, so LEMISI or B2P to reveal them tactfully is a good idea.

Explore a bit before you kill anything - but not too much. Go for bandits first, and make sure you have enough things to kill after the first big bunch of curse - if you have no resists it cant hurt you.

Also - IMAWAL. Not only does it lets you get XP with less kills, but you can also get rid of curse by using it.

Makes sense. For CO I just accept there are no resistances/they aren't as reliable and go for something else if possible.

This thread has inspired me to try the dangling PQI - purist Halfling Assassin. I thought what the heck, at least I won't lose gold on preparations. Success! Got balancing dagger and +10hp neck early - that didn't help much past level 4. HP pact and Consensus from Pactmaker, then took Binlor. Had ENDISWAL by then - pretty much nothing else til late game. Got stone heart and knockback eventually. They worked about as well as the dagger By the time I got to level 8 I was a 140HP guy with whopping 40 or so damage (fine sword included). I didn't really believe I can do the two bosses but went for it anyway. At least the poison worked on the first boss. Leveled up midfight, scrounged the remaining few regen spots with LEMISI. Ended up against the curse shade with, well, 1 potion and a few glyphs. Converted all but fine sword. With luck, shade kept porting next to the plants for knockback. Killed it with lightfoot and 19HP remaining. "DING! Max!" Couldn't believe I actually won a purist in CO. Still can't. Didn't even use Fireball, found it too late.

Darvin - I compared the ending screenshots to see if there's anything I could improve, and... 13 minutes?! You did the ENTIRE CO with a crazy combo in... *speechless*. Naah. I'll stick to my half an hour fully prepped marathons

Darvin - I compared the ending screenshots to see if there's anything I could improve, and... 13 minutes?! You did the ENTIRE CO with a crazy combo in... *speechless*. Naah. I'll stick to my half an hour fully prepped marathons

I have an extensive background in multiplayer RTS games. That really teaches you how to act decisively.